Dating for Recovering Fundies

[senda wales]

(02-28-2012 04:55 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  

(02-28-2012 04:27 PM)senda wales Wrote:  I'm currently dating a gamer nerd. Gaming in itself is not a turn-off. Sleaziness, creepiness, desperation, insecurity, and lack of ability to articulate anything interesting are. Desperation also comes across as creepy.

Maybe I should pick up gaming and drop the other habits.

Now that I think about it, most of the guys I've been involved with or dated would consider themselves gamers, to varying degrees.

[IFB No More]

I second this article...
http://dannyfrom504.wordpress.com/detinennui32s-advice/

[senda wales]

These posts sound like they were written by a pick-up artist. The "IOIs" (Indicators of Interest), "LTR" (Long-Term Relationship), and "Game" terms he dropped are pick-up artist lingo. Be careful about taking advice about how to treat women from pick-up artists... It's great advice if you want to pick up a woman to have sex with her, but not so fulfilling if you want an actual human being as a companion.

I think a lot of this advice is archaic and based on some out-dated norms and overgeneralizing. I'd take it all with a grain of salt.

[amyrose5]

(03-12-2012 04:12 PM)senda wales Wrote:  These posts sound like they were written by a pick-up artist. The "IOIs" (Indicators of Interest), "LTR" (Long-Term Relationship), and "Game" terms he dropped are pick-up artist lingo. Be careful about taking advice about how to treat women from pick-up artists... It's great advice if you want to pick up a woman to have sex with her, but not so fulfilling if you want an actual human being as a companion.

I think a lot of this advice is archaic and based on some out-dated norms and overgeneralizing. I'd take it all with a grain of salt.

^^^THIS.

[Jeremy]

(03-12-2012 04:43 PM)amyrose5 Wrote:  

(03-12-2012 04:12 PM)senda wales Wrote:  These posts sound like they were written by a pick-up artist. The "IOIs" (Indicators of Interest), "LTR" (Long-Term Relationship), and "Game" terms he dropped are pick-up artist lingo. Be careful about taking advice about how to treat women from pick-up artists... It's great advice if you want to pick up a woman to have sex with her, but not so fulfilling if you want an actual human being as a companion.

I think a lot of this advice is archaic and based on some out-dated norms and overgeneralizing. I'd take it all with a grain of salt.

^^^THIS.

Ladies, don't take this the wrong way, but your disagreements with a pickup artist aren't going to count for much, simply because you're expected to disagree with pickup artists. They actually take women's objections to their theories as a compliment.

If, on the other hand, a dude calls this guy's bullshit, it says something. So I will.

A. People in real relationships don't use acronyms. Acronyms, among other things, provide emotional distance from what they refer to. That's one of the reasons they're so popular in the military. Using them to talk about relationships is kind of silly. Relationships will never be purely about science and quantifiable information. There's an art to them as well.

b. I'm not going to entirely discount the existence of power dynamics in relationships. However, reducing a relationship to nothing BUT power dynamics makes it not a relationship, but simply an arrangement. A key ingredient, possibly THE most important, in a relationship is trust, and constantly maneuvering to maintain control is the very antithesis of trust. A trusting, successful relationship will actually involve both parties frequently relinquishing power to the other because they don't have to hoard power to themselves in order to feel safe.

c. Treating women as incapable of rising above power dynamics is incredibly insulting to both genders. It paints women as less than human, since apparently they are governed by their survival instinct and nothing else. But it also de-humanizes men by claiming that men will never deserve or acquire a mate until they master this power/manipulation game. In reality, it simply sets up a hierarchy where the pickup artist is on a lofty pedestal above everybody else because he's mastered the dynamics of power, and all the repressed, emotional masses crawl around in the dust and grime of their "drama" and "needs" at his feet. That's laughable and unsustainable. Even pickup artists themselves can't maintain this charade forever. Eventually they end up giving all their power to somebody else in return for what they discounted but really wanted all along--acceptance and affection. Or they die cold and alone.

The reason nice people with more reserved personalities or aversions to power/manipulation games get overlooked is not because something is necessarily wrong with them, it's because the people around them don't have the character to look past the surface and see what they truly have to offer, which we are capable of doing as human beings but which takes effort. And in our disgustingly materialistic and competitive American culture, that's a moral effort that most people can't be bothered to undertake. Which has led to the rise of the pickup artist, a guy who is so desperate to get laid by girls who are so morally bankrupt that it all gets reduced to calculations of power. Ask your grandparents if all this went through their heads when they fell in love. Ask your granddad if he sought to hide his emotions or act like he didn't care to make grandma want him more. They didn't, because that's absurd and they were better people. A pickup artist needs a morally bankrupt world in which to operate, otherwise he's easily recognized as pathetic.

So can we learn something from power dynamics? Absolutely. But power will never satisfy the soul, especially when you're dealing with free-willed beings. You will never truly be satisfied in love until somebody loves you of their own free will, not because you have mastered The Game.

[Elijah Craig]

(03-12-2012 09:50 PM)Jeremy Wrote:  c. Treating women as incapable of rising above power dynamics is incredibly insulting to both genders. It paints women as less than human, since apparently they are governed by their survival instinct and nothing else. But it also de-humanizes men by claiming that men will never deserve or acquire a mate until they master this power/manipulation game. In reality, it simply sets up a hierarchy where the pickup artist is on a lofty pedestal above everybody else because he's mastered the dynamics of power.

Pardon the vulgarity here, but I need to tweak something you said: the Pickup Artist is placed on a high plane than "Average Frustrated Chumps" but pussy is what is put on the pedestal.

There's nothing "manly" about that. In a backhanded way these dudes are actually surrendering their "masculinity" to women. They are basing all their actions on whether or not women will let them into their vajayjay.

These dudes are nothing more than a woman's play thing. Most girls realize very early on that sex appeal is very powerful. Men who are physically commanding and bully other guys can be led around the nose by women who know how to work sex appeal. PUA stuff plays into that.

Quote:Which has led to the rise of the pickup artist, a guy who is so desperate to get laid by girls who are so morally bankrupt that it all gets reduced to calculations of power.

Yes, the guy is desperate but it's not just moral bankruptcy, it's a guy who is too stupid to realize that he's actually surrendering his power to women.

[Elijah Craig]

(03-12-2012 01:40 PM)IFB No More Wrote:  I second this article...
http://dannyfrom504.wordpress.com/detinennui32s-advice/

He started out with some facts that are more or less true, but once he gains trust he starts saying stuff that's problematic.

This "fitness test" stuff has some truth to it but it's terribly damaging to human relationships to play those sort of games. It's not a male or female thing, it's a character flaw. I would never pursue a relationship with a woman who started out trying to test me nor would I continue in one where it happened very often.

Also it's true that there are always other women. But some are going to be much better matches for you. Really good matches can be really hard to find. These deserve more attention and work.

Women are not "much, much more attractive at 20 than at 30." Thirty year old women are very, very, very attractive and quite often are much sexier than they are at 20. There are also 40 year olds that can hold their own with any 20 year old. I saw a recent picture of 55 year old Gloria Estafan and let's just say I'd hit it two times. The guy acts like smooth skin is the only component of sexiness.

Also, not all women like "dominant" guys. Dominant guys are often assholes or tiresome in some way. Guys can be very successful and good providers without being dominant over other guys. What exactly is "dominance" anyway? Who is more dominant, Tim Tebow or Ben Bernanke? Would a girl rather date a cop or an IT guy? Which is more dominant, the cop because he enforces the law or the IT guy because he makes 6 figures? "Dominance" is one of those terms that, when used in reference to masculinity, is ambiguous. And if you ask different women and you'll get different answers as to which they prefer.

A lot of girls DO like sensitive guys. Sensitivity is not effeminate. If he's talking about guys who are pushover, emotional, crying all the time, then he used the wrong word. Sensitive and psychological stable are not necessarily opposites.

At Fundy U almost 15 years ago, I saw a goofy looking overweight guy with very thick glasses with a very attractive girlfriend. I have no idea how he did it, but when I saw that it gave me hope. I think the important thing is to know who you are-- that's attractive to anyone. Decide what you're willing to give up, what you need to improve on, and what's just a part of you that you don't have to change for anybody. Because if you change yourself to get a girl and you're not happy with the change, then you're never really going to be happy with her, either. You're going to feel trapped. How you get someone is how you keep someone, so make sure that how you get them is genuinely "you."

[senda wales]

(03-12-2012 09:50 PM)Jeremy Wrote:  Ladies, don't take this the wrong way, but your disagreements with a pickup artist aren't going to count for much, simply because you're expected to disagree with pickup artists. They actually take women's objections to their theories as a compliment.

Huh. I've never had the "You're a woman so your opinions are invalid" card thrown at me.

My analysis of pick-up artist culture comes more out of reading a book written by a male journalist who joined the pick-up artist community and the conclusions he drew from his participant-observation. I have no real objection to their theories, because at its most basic level, PUA is all about human psychology. Their theories can be applied to other human relationships and are very useful in that sense. Many of their principles are good principles to live by - don't hit on a girl within minutes of meeting her, have a life, be confident about yourself, don't be afraid to talk to people and practice if you have trouble doing so, etc. From a strictly goals/results perspective, PUA is very effective. To some extent, I think it can be a very empowering skill to learn. And if that's all you want in life, to have sex with a girl within a few hours of meeting her, then it's a very effective and strategic thing to learn.

But if you want something else besides that, like developing a human relationship, then PUA is just not the way to go. It's not about me being female and criticizing the PUA community. It's that PUA is, by definition, simply not intended for developing human relationships.

[Elijah Craig]

(03-12-2012 11:15 PM)senda wales Wrote:  And if that's all you want in life, to have sex with a vulnerable girl who falls for pickup artists and catch Herpes within a few hours of meeting her, then it's a very effective and strategic thing to learn.

FIFY

[exOBCstudent]

(03-12-2012 10:25 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  

(03-12-2012 01:40 PM)IFB No More Wrote:  I second this article...
http://dannyfrom504.wordpress.com/detinennui32s-advice/

He started out with some facts that are more or less true, but once he gains trust he starts saying stuff that's problematic.

This "fitness test" stuff has some truth to it but it's terribly damaging to human relationships to play those sort of games. It's not a male or female thing, it's a character flaw. I would never pursue a relationship with a woman who started out trying to test me nor would I continue in one where it happened very often.

Also it's true that there are always other women. But some are going to be much better matches for you. Really good matches can be really hard to find. These deserve more attention and work.

Women are not "much, much more attractive at 20 than at 30." Thirty year old women are very, very, very attractive and quite often are much sexier than they are at 20. There are also 40 year olds that can hold their own with any 20 year old. I saw a recent picture of 55 year old Gloria Estafan and let's just say I'd hit it two times. The guy acts like smooth skin is the only component of sexiness.

Also, not all women like "dominant" guys. Dominant guys are often assholes or tiresome in some way. Guys can be very successful and good providers without being dominant over other guys. What exactly is "dominance" anyway? Who is more dominant, Tim Tebow or Ben Bernanke? Would a girl rather date a cop or an IT guy? Which is more dominant, the cop because he enforces the law or the IT guy because he makes 6 figures? "Dominance" is one of those terms that, when used in reference to masculinity, is ambiguous. And if you ask different women and you'll get different answers as to which they prefer.

A lot of girls DO like sensitive guys. Sensitivity is not effeminate. If he's talking about guys who are pushover, emotional, crying all the time, then he used the wrong word. Sensitive and psychological stable are not necessarily opposites.

At Fundy U almost 15 years ago, I saw a goofy looking overweight guy with very thick glasses with a very attractive girlfriend. I have no idea how he did it, but when I saw that it gave me hope. I think the important thing is to know who you are-- that's attractive to anyone. Decide what you're willing to give up, what you need to improve on, and what's just a part of you that you don't have to change for anybody. Because if you change yourself to get a girl and you're not happy with the change, then you're never really going to be happy with her, either. You're going to feel trapped. How you get someone is how you keep someone, so make sure that how you get them is genuinely "you."

I actually had to keep myself from laughing out loud when I read that! I knew a guy in college in the exact same situation. He was huge and squeezed into a tiny-looking Dodge Neon SRT6 and had the best looking girl in the school! They're married now and doing very well indeed. I just didn't understand it then.

I'm so glad my wife loved me for the real "me" and not what she saw in me when I was a Fundy. My in-laws I think liked the fundy "me" more because of the status I had in the cult but I don't have to live with them every day. (Thank God!)